Sun
Apr.9
2006

The Swedish Capital Stockholm

As a sunday pleasure, I thought I should invite you to our city, the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. (Stock = log, holm = islet or small island). There is no clear evidence of how it got it’s name.

The earliest mention of Stockholm dates from 1252 (not counted as town until 1270), so we really do have an old town. The most popular part of it is called The Old Town and have very old buildings with narrow streets (MÃ¥rten Trotzigs Alley measures 35 inches between the walls!)
and a special athmosphere of time aging, like you were thrown back in time.

The mentions I’ve heard from tourists is that Stockholm has interesting architecture, it’s beautiful, clean, green (38 parks) and with a lot of water. Often called The Northern Venice - no wonder - it’s 14 islands joined by 53 bridges! The city is one third water, one third green and the last third is urbanized.

Mr Lifecruiser forced me to write this fact: Stockholm region has about 54 golf courses too.

The beautiful and popular stockholm archipelago starts here with it’s 24.000 islands, rocks and skerries. The sweatwater Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea at the sluice. Actually it’s several sluices, the most central’s name is Carl Johan after a swedish king, but it’s also called “divorce ditch” among people, because of all the problems and swearing that’s going on when boat people are going through the sluice with their boats ;-)

You can even go fishing in the middle of the city. The unpolluted swiftly-flowing water that runs through the city has the greatest number of fish species in the region. Salmon trout, pike, perch, bream, and salmon. The biggest known salmon caught there weighed 48 pounds.

Stockholm has 760 000 inhabitants. Greater Stockholm 1.900.000. (Sweden’s total: 9 millions). The average Stockholmer is 39 years old, earns SEK 20.500 ($2.622) per month, and has 1.36 children. And what about this fact: Stockholm has more single-person households than any other capital in the world. I can’t decide if it’s good or bad…. I think bad. I can’t imagine that all of them really wants to be single…?

Now we comes to the most important stuff for the hungry monsters like me: Sweden publishes more cookbooks per capita than any other country in the world, averaging one per day. We’re really appreciating good food, wanting variations in the recipes and have taken up cooking from all over the world. Only in Stockholm there is said to be between 1600-2500 restaurants. What can I say? We like to eat… Or maybe we need more because of the cold weather?

Mostly people come to Stockholm for the food, the design and the music. We enjoy the highest density of galleries and museums in the world, but there is so much other things to enjoy here too. After all, it’s a capital, so even the nightlife is high rated.

So what are you waiting for…?

NOTE: We’ve uploaded some old pics from The Royal Swedish Castle with surroundings, taken in springtime 2004. We were there to see the change of the royal guards (with horses, you know how much I love horses!) - and it was freezing cold. Brrr… Cold winds made our poor camera hands stiff, so no good photos…

Lifecruisers Royal Castle Photos

Stockholm Town Guide about The Royal Castle
Wikipedia about Stockholm

Comments on The Swedish Capital Stockholm

  • 1
    sisiggy UNITED STATES said:

    You had to mention the golf courses? I had my husband sold on Italy for my 50th but now he’s walking around with a glazed expression muttering about Swedish golf courses. Do you know what it’s like to travel with golf clubs?

    (I don’t want to see what that .36 kid looks like…)

  • 2
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Hm.. let’s hope your 50th isn’t between May-August? Then you can tell him that it’s more practical to take raincoats and lifejackets… Last summer during vacation time, it rained for 4 weeks in a row!!!!!! (It don’t use to be like that every summer, but don’t tell him that…)
    No, I don’t know (yet?) how it is to travel with golfclubs - I’ve tried to avoid that and luckily Mr L has listen to my arguments so far. That being that it would be hard for him to carry all our bags and the golf clubs too!

    I just knew that some one would comment on that .36 kid :-)

  • 3
    Napfisk BELGIUM said:

    I don’t see myself raising the funds or the time quite soon, but it’s been on my list for some time. This post hast pushed it to number 1 now.

  • 4
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Hm, Napfisk, that made me a little curious what it was that pushed it up on your list… :-)

  • 5
    sharlet SINGAPORE said:

    Argh! I really dislike Flickr! Loading is always so slow! >:-(

    Why no photos with you or Mr Lifecruiser? ;)

    And single-person households… that’s interesting… maybe they’re lying?? (They’re actually singles, but the partner is always sleeping over, like maybe 6 out of 7 days a week! Hehe!)

  • 6
    Napfisk BELGIUM said:

    Well, in general, being reminded that Stockholm is actually a great city (the architecture, the parks, the water), it’s big (I keep forgetting about that) and the fact that I have actually been there as a child (but keep forgetting about that too – too long ago and too long a story for now, trust me).

    In particular, however, the food and the restaurants did the trick! I keep forgetting about that aspect too, I fear. And that’s why I need the cash – it’s not the cheapest of places to spend a hearty midweek I suspect.

  • 7
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Ah, the food… Excellent choice, says the hungry monster - me!

    .. and yes, you’ll need plenty of…. everything ;-)

  • 8
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Sharlet:
    Sorry for the bad luck you seem to have with Flickr, for us it’s rare that it takes time to load….
    There are photos of me and Mr Lifecruiser - in other folders there. But generally, we like the pics without any of us disturbing the motif.
    Interesting theory about the singles, hehe…

  • 9
    Mandy NETHERLANDS said:

    54 golf courses, is that a hint that Mr Lifecruiser is a golf man? I’d say so.. and with all those cookbooks, are you a keen cook Mrs Lifecruiser?

    Now you mention architect, now I know why you enjoyed visiting Amsterdam, (apart from the usual ‘window shopping’) of course.

  • 10
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Yes, Mandy, he is. At least until he met me, hehe… After that he hasn’t got much time for golf. We’ve been out travelling too much, busy discovering the world. Maybe he get some more time at the golf courses this spring, now when we couldn’t travel because of my health mostly.

    I’m not so keen on cooking as I am on eating *lol*, but I do enjoy cooking. Together with Mr Lifecruiser. About the only thing we don’t do together is golfing actually. We like the same things, enjoy each others company without feeling forced to, if you know what I mean…

  • 11
    mrhaney UNITED STATES said:

    you have some great pictures here. who took them?

  • 12
    Lifecruiser SWEDEN said:

    Thanks mrhaney, we’re glad you liked them :-)

    These ones is taken by me, Mrs Lifecruiser, but usually our uploaded pics is taken by us both. We love to take pictures, both of us.

    All photos on this blog, in posts, are taken by The Lifecruiser Team (a few is taken by Miss Ass. Lifecruiser), that’s a rule we have here. Exception when we both are on a photo at the same time, then obviously we had some help….

  • 13

    Visit Stockholm…

    Click through for more good reasons to visit Stockholm…….

  • 14

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